Serving in the Church

God tells us in 2 Corinthians 9 that when we serve, sacrifice, or give for the good of his church there is a cascading series of positive effects that should encourage and motivate us to keep at it. He begins with the most obvious benefit that comes from our generous service. God tells us that needs get met (2 Corinthians 9:12). This is obvious, but important. When we get involved, the church is bettered and the people of God are served. God loves that. Secondly, he tells us that when we give of ourselves for the benefit of the church there is also “an overflow of thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:12). When Christians are served with excellence and their needs are adequately met, they are prompted to respond with praise and gratitude to the Lord. In this God is directly glorified. Thirdly, our service says something positive about us. It appropriately substantiates our reputation as regenerate servants of Christ (2 Corinthians 9:13). After all, such acts of good are what God said we should be known for (cf. Matthew 5:16; Titus 2:14; Ephesians 2:10; et al.). Fourthly, 2 Corinthians 9 tells us that God’s people will be prompted to “pray” for those who serve them (2 Corinthians 9:14). When we sacrifice for the good of Christ’s followers, they tend to respond by upholding us in prayer. And we all certainly need that. Lastly, we are reminded that when we generously give of ourselves to benefit the church, we are echoing the nature and character of God. The chapter simply ends by comparing such service with God’s grace by adding: “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15). So while you may have many reasons for not serving, sacrificing or giving, be sure to spend some time remembering some of God’s reasons for why you should.

For more sermons and devotionals on Hard Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Exposing Anxiety

When God confronts the sin of anxiety in Philippians 4, his prescribed remedy helps to clearly diagnose the problem – especially in the lives of those who tend to downplay its repercussions and choose to think that worry is not that big of a deal. In Philippians 4:4-8 the Lord commands five things for those who are anxious and worried. He directs them to rejoice, to be reasonable, to remember Christ’s return, to pray, and to consistently ponder good things. Consider how God’s fix may in fact reveal the depth of one’s entanglement in this sin. If you rarely find yourself spontaneously “rejoicing” and your heart is running low on joy, then maybe you are more worried and anxious than you care to admit. If you can detect that your interaction with others is often less than reasonable, then maybe anxiety has found a home in your heart. If your mind doesn’t regularly turn to the victorious hope of Christ’s second coming, if your prayer life is lagging, and if your thoughts don’t persistently settle on what is honorable, pure and commendable, then it may be time to admit the root problem. As with any sin, recognizing it and confessing it is the first step. Then you can move on to thoughtfully and purposefully employ these five inspired correctives. God is more than ready to give us victory over this destructive sin and to “guard our hearts and minds” (Philippians 4:7) as we confess our sin and respond obediently to his instructions.

For more sermons and devotionals on Hard Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Don't Drift

Hebrews 2:1 tells us that “we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Much like a leisurely float down a meandering river, if we choose to relax in the Christian life we can be assured that the tide of our culture and the tug of our flesh will draw our hearts and minds away from God’s truth and further down the stream of unbelief and compromise. The world we live in and the bodies we are encased in are not neutral. They persistently and actively work against the desires of our regenerate hearts and the righteous convictions of God’s Spirit. This is why the Bible says to “present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God” and to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:1-2). This is an active, focused, thoughtful work to “pay close attention” to God’s truth. And it is needful because your regenerate heart is designed to be continually “renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10). So with your full “attention” dive back into the life-changing “knowledge” you find in God’s word and allow your mind to be “renewed”, so that “by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

For more sermons and devotionals on Hard Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Prayer Perspective

We need to remember the greatness of the God to whom we pray. We often pray small prayers for small things because we’ve forgotten the transcendent majesty of our God. Far too often, our perspective is trivial, temporal, and insignificant because we rush to our requests without considering just how “hallowed” his Name actually is (Matthew 6:9). When Nehemiah prayed for the challenges he faced, he reminded himself that he “prayed before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4). Prior to laying his supplications before God he addressed him as “Yahweh, God of heaven, the great and awesome God” (Nehemiah 1:5). It is good for us to say with Jeremiah, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17). As God himself has said, “Every beast of the forest is mine” and even “the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10). So maybe our prayer list needs an overdue adjustment that comes from remembering that when we pray we are addressing the all-powerful, all-sufficient, everlasting King who has, and always will have, the ability to do whatever he chooses to do (Psalm 115:3). So pray big, mindful that he “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).

For more sermons and devotionals on Hard Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Trusting God

God wants us to trust him. The Bible goes so far as to say, “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6). Trusting God to forgive us, and having confidence in Christ to save us from the penalty of our sins is just the beginning (as the rest of Hebrews 11 goes on to illustrate). We face important opportunities to trust God when we encounter health issues, financial challenges, relationship problems, and all the varied concerns about our security and safety. In all situations our task as God’s children is to be faithful in doing what he has commanded us to do and to sincerely trust him to provide. Consider God’s directive to the Israelites when he instructed them to gather their manna in the wilderness. He told them, “Gather it, each one of you” and so they did (Exodus 16:16). But considering all the variables between each family’s abilities, capacities and needs, we would assume that some would not have enough and others would have too much. But as God would have it, “whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack” (Exodus 16:18). Our faithful God lovingly and perfectly provided for his people when they diligently worked and sincerely trusted him for the outcome. He did so then, and he does so now. Not wanting this truth to be forgotten, God had Israel memorialize this event when he told Moses, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout the generations” (Exodus 16:33). For centuries that jar sat nestled in the ark of the covenant in the middle of the Old Testament worship center as a perpetual reminder that God can be fully trusted, day in and day out, because he is a God who perfectly provides.

For more sermons and devotionals on Hard Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org   

Hard Truth

We all work to make our lives as comfortable and pain-free as possible. We buy all sorts of appliances and gadgets to make hard jobs easy, and seek out any available remedy to alleviate our bodily aches and pains. And this makes perfect sense. Only a masochist would willingly accept pain that could easily be eradicated. But we dare not take this natural inclination into our study of God’s word. Our theology must never be shaped by a desire to eliminate hard truths and downplay painful passages. Remembering that we are fallen people awaiting our future glorification, we must gladly hold on to uncomfortable doctrines and prickly principles that grate against our human sensibilities. We can expect that the assortment of God-breathed truths speaking clearly about our perfectly just and infinitely holy Creator will not all sit well in our minds this side of heaven. So instead of reaching for a commonly heard rationalization designed to quickly take the edge off of a text that hurts, remember that God’s word is perfect and we are not. Remember that we must not allow its truth to be shaped by our thinking, but that instead we are called to conform our thinking to the truth of God’s word.

For more sermons and devotionals on Hard Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org  

Apologetic Discussions

In a culture where our cognitive attention span is sadly being reduced to a series of sound bites, and important arguments are perceived to be settled with witty one-liners, it is increasingly difficult to engage in meaningful discussions about the truthfulness of Christianity. But we must. Our biblical job as disciple-making ambassadors includes demonstrating the reasonableness of following Christ. We are not promoters of “cleverly devised myths” (2 Peter 1:16). What we advocate consists of “true and rational words” (Acts 26:25). And so we must be “prepared to make a defense”, giving a thoughtful “reason for the hope” that we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15). This will require effort on our part to slow down the conversation, carefully identifying and highlighting the legitimate objections our non-Christian friends raise regarding the veracity of the Christian faith. Once we sort out the honest intellectual questions from the defensive smokescreens that hide volitional stubbornness, we can begin to methodically pursue answers. Because the defense of our faith should not be seen as a ten-minute, ego-driven dispute to be won, but rather as a pair of human beings dialoging about the meaning and purpose of our existence, we should get used to the idea that biblical apologetics is usually a long series of involved discussions that take place over weeks and months. While our evangelism always feels urgent, profitable dialog with skeptics can rarely be rushed. So slow it down and take the needed time to “provide a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org 

Hard Work

The Bible has a lot to say about working hard, being disciplined, and fighting all slothful tendencies. The Christian work ethic we derive from the teaching of both the Old and New Testament leaves no room for leisurely lives, lethargic attitudes or half-hearted work. Solomon advises us to “Go to the ant” and learn her wise ways (Proverbs 6:6). No one has to stand over her shoulder to prod her along. Threats are not needed. Like the rest of God’s insects, the ant is an industrious self-starter. “Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest” (Proverbs 6:7-8). The Apostle Paul equates idleness with sin, going so far as to say that we shouldn’t even associate with a Christian who is lazy (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Paul points to his own example and tells how he, Silas, and Timothy “were not idle” but instead “with toil and labor we worked night and day” (2 Thessalonians 3:7-8). Of course, scheduled times of rest and refreshment were built into the pattern of creation, but a life of leisure was never the goal. God created us to be creators, thinkers and workers. So instead of being discouraged about past failures or any previous patterns of sluggish work, why not pray for a fresh start and for God’s encouragement, then approach the next thing on your schedule with a purposeful enthusiasm. And always remember that “whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Four Things God Cannot Do

For years on playgrounds everywhere church kids have been stymied by the agitator’s questions, “Can God do anything? And if so, can he make a rock so big he can’t move it?” While children may struggle with the answer, I hope the rest of us do not. Thankfully, we can offer a resounding “No!” and feel good about it – really good! God tells us that he is a God who cannot do several things. And for that we should be eternally grateful! Consider the amazingly gracious promises he has made and inscribed for us in the pages of the Bible. All of our hope and strength regarding those promises is derived from the fact that God cannot do at least four things as it relates to those commitments. First, God is holy and therefore is incapable of deceiving us (2 Timothy 2:11-13). All of his good promises are true because he could not and would not ever lie to us (Titus 1:2). Second, God is omniscient, always knowing all that can be known (Psalm 139:1-6). And because he is omniscient he cannot possibly forget a promise that he has made (2 Peter 3:8-9). Third, God is immutable and therefore cannot change (Malachi 3:6). A gracious promise he makes in 750 BC will not be rescinded because he has grown, matured, or changed over the centuries (Psalm 102:25-28). Fourth, God is omnipotent, possessing all power (Jeremiah 32:17). Therefore, all of his good promises will succeed because nothing has the power to thwart his purpose – he simply cannot fail (Romans 8:31-39). Every promise about our future is certain and sure because God cannot be less than he is. He cannot lie, forget, change or fail! And that should provide us with a kind of confidence that engenders “strong encouragement” each and every day (Hebrews 6:17-19).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Motives

What an amazing experience to have been a follower of Christ during his earthly ministry. Imagine sitting in the crowd listening to him teach, counsel and correct the world in which you lived. Consider the enormous privilege of being able to ask your specific questions and having God’s perfect wisdom delivered to you by the mouth of Christ himself. But even with all of that, Judas proved to be a traitor. He was given every advantage, including daily, personal communication with the incarnate Creator; yet Judas callously turned on Christ and betrayed him for a few thousand dollars. The Apostle John gives us some insight to Judas’ mind, as he recounts a scene from the defector’s life with Christ. He reveals that from the beginning Judas had been in it for all the wrong reasons (John 12:4-6). While at the time he seemed sincere enough to be trusted as the chief financial officer, and his loyalty was never doubted by the others (John 13:28-29), the truth was, he was a classic hypocrite. His goals were nefarious and his agenda was selfish. He did not have God’s interests in view, but instead he utilized his association with Christ as a means to his own self-serving ends. That is a scary reality – intimately acquainted with Jesus, but never on the same page, constantly associated with Christ, but never truly aligned. Judas’ life, if nothing else, should serve as a clarion call for us to reconsider our motives. His betrayal should remind us to always make certain that we are “in this” for the right reasons.

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Supreme Relationship

Some of the most challenging words Christ ever spoke concerned the disastrous problem of allowing our relationships with loved ones to be of greater importance than our relationship with him. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” Jesus said, “and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). These words are discordant in the ears of today’s Christians who have been raised with the church’s relatively recent obsession with the family. Focusing on the family, “family radio” and the slew of “family-friendly” Christian services and ministries have led many to wrongly conclude that the apex of Christianity is some kind of idyllic family-centered life. But that is certainly not what we find in the Bible. The Scripture tells us that the only appropriate center for anyone’s life is the triune God. Every other interest, pursuit or relationship will ultimately fail in serving as the governing, central and chief love of a human heart. Only when God is the unrivaled focus and purpose of our soul will we be enabled to function as we ought in any area of life. Kids make for a lousy god. So do marriages. And so do careers, houses, reputations and good health. While we all enjoy the blessings of good families and all that may come with them, we must remember that we were made to exclusively worship and serve our Maker. We must never allow ourselves to love any of his gifts more than the Giver himself.

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Doubt

It’s not just Thomas; every Christian has moments and even seasons of doubt. But the best prescription when doubts arise is to go back to Christ’s credentials and the reliability of the biblical documents. Consider the fact that our confidence is rooted in one who regularly pointed to how the entirety of his life perfectly fulfilled the ancient and exacting prophecies of Scripture (Luke 24:24-27). There is no avoiding the truth that the Old Testament manuscripts about the Messiah preceded their fulfillment by hundreds of years – several discoveries have repeatedly confirmed this fact. From his ancestral heritage (Jeremiah 23:5), the city of his birth (Micah 5:2), the time of his appearing (Daniel 9:24-27), to his death and resurrection (Isaiah 53:4-12), these and many other exacting prophecies show that Christ is not some random rabbi whose new religion happened to catch on. And because any motivated student can quickly research and discover that the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, which predicted the life and ministry of Christ, along with the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, that recorded his life and teachings, are the most broadly documented and best preserved and transmitted manuscripts in all of human history, it is hard to dismiss the foundation of Christianity because of some passing feelings of skepticism. An objective look at truth has a great way of dispelling our periodic doubts. So expect our spiritual enemy to inject doubt from time to time (that’s what he has been doing from the beginning), but respond with your own counterattack by going back to Christ’s credentials and the integrity of the biblical documents

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Prayer Requests

Be careful what you repeatedly ask of God. You can’t always judge a prayer by its answer. While it’s true that many times in his kindness God withholds granting what we foolishly or selfishly request (James 4:3), there are plenty of biblical examples where God eventually grants the persistent yet imprudent prayers of his people. Consider Israel’s repeated cry for a king. “We want to be like every other nation!” they relentlessly sniveled. So at last God said, “Fine, here you go” (see 1 Samuel 8-9). God answered their prayer with exactly the type of leader they requested, but it certainly wasn’t in their best interest. We may think of God giving non-Christians over to their sin when they are obstinate in chasing what is wrong (Romans 1:24-28), but how often do we Christians doggedly pursue our own interests in our prayer lives without sincerely following Christ’s example of tempering every request with “…nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42)? We need to learn to be flexible in our asking. We must be honest and humble about our limitations. We may not know what is actually best. We need to be less obstinate concerning our prayer requests and more trusting that God may have a different path or some creative means to accomplish his will in our lives. So pray, and be specific, but always end your prayers with a malleable heart, which believes that God knows best how to lead and direct his children.

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Perspective on the Unseen

To hold a biblical perspective on reality is to affirm that there is more to reality than what meets the eye. In fact, what you don’t see matters far more than what you do see. Paul writes, “For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). It’s not that the present universe isn’t important, it’s just that we need to be repeatedly reminded that all of the current physical creation “will perish,” and that God “will change it like a robe,” but the Lord and his people “will have no end” (Psalm 102:25-28). It might be compared to your computer. There is a lot you can physically see, touch and analyze – you can test the power supply, touch the memory chips, and dissect the motherboard – but far more important, is the data which resides on and is expressed through the hardware. Those digital realities are what really matter to us. That is what we value. That is what we will carefully preserve and keep to transcend the limited lifespan of our aging and soon-to-be-outdated laptops. The Bible asserts that the physical world was created by our non-physical God, as a vehicle to embody and express the unseen spirits of men, women and children. As others have rightly said, “you do not have a spirit; you are a spirit, who has a body.” And because of the sentence of sin, the bodies we have will continue to age on this decaying planet while we and it “wait with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” to be “set free from bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Vigilant Living

There is a kind of sober, vigilant, circumspect mindset that the Scripture consistently promotes and calls his people to maintain. Paul rebukes the Corinthians both metaphorically and literally: “Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning” (1 Corinthians 15:34). That groggy, kick-back, chill-out attitude, which seems to hold sway in affluent church cultures during peacetime has no place among Christians at any time or in any age. Christ’s followers must always be alert, cognizant of their spiritual enemies, and on the lookout for those strategic opportunities to advance the kingdom of God, in order to push back those stubborn and insidious “gates of hell” (Matthew 16:18). This is why the Bible regularly calls us to sustain a watchful and attentive attitude. Notice how the Holy Spirit exhorts us: “Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). That particular exhortation is quickly followed by a military analogy that begins by again calling us to “be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). We can be certain that whatever works to desensitize our thinking or lulls us into some level of passivity is positively not from God. The Spirit’s influence on your life is always going to lead you to be “preparing your mind for action” and beckon you to be “sober-minded” (1 Peter 1:13). So stay focused and alert, ready for whatever God has for you to face today.

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Parenting

Parenting is hard work. Particularly because we are called by God to direct and correct young human beings who are born sinners (Psalm 51:5), by nature chafe against the instructions of God (Romans 8:7; 1 Corinthians 2:14), and are obstinately focused on pleasing their own selfish appetites (Ephesians 2:3). And yet, even from the youngest of years, this work to curtail, limit, shape and redirect young rebellious lives is precisely what God requires us to do (Ephesians 6:4; Proverbs 22:15). Of course, our ultimate goal is to bring them to a mature understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but at the same time, throughout each season of immaturity our job is to reign in, curb and restrain their innate impulses to do what is sinful (1 Samuel 3:13). For even before the transforming work of regeneration takes place, “a child makes himself known by his acts” (Proverbs 20:11) and parents are evaluated by either the submission or the insubordination of their children (Titus 1:6). And considering the great personal costs to your child for his or her moral choices (Galatians 6:8), it makes sense that a mom or dad’s effort in this task is seen as the definitive measure of parental love (Proverbs 13:24). It should come as no surprise that when permissiveness characterizes a home, shame, regret and disgrace will surely follow (Proverbs 29:15). So if you are in the throes of correcting and corralling young sinners, take heart, your consistent, firm and loving discipline will reap a harvest of peace and righteousness (Proverbs 29:17).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Spiritual Sensitivity

The lenses of our eyes are extremely sensitive. It doesn’t take but a speck of dust to stop us in our tracks so that we can delicately and diligently work to extract the irritating particle. That’s what makes Christ’s illustration concerning the undetected “log in our eye” such an extreme indictment regarding our moral and spiritual insensitivity. His analogy in Matthew 7 is intended to underscore our predisposition to maintaining a keen awareness regarding other people’s sins, while neglecting to ever critically evaluate ourselves. This can be seen in how we read the Bible – especially its many denunciations. How often do we read about God’s stinging rebukes or promised judgments on the doubting Israelites or the compromising nations, without ever pausing to see ourselves in those passages? How regularly do we read stories of disobedience to God and rebellion against his holy precepts, only to regretfully affirm God’s displeasure with someone else? This is a dangerous practice and one that we must ask God to help us overcome. We must be willing, first and foremost, to stare intently into God’s word as “a mirror” reflecting our own lives (James 1:22-25). We must linger over each Scriptural rebuke and allow God’s Spirit to “search the heart and test the mind” (Jeremiah 17:10). “Then,” Jesus said, “you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

True Truth

As many faithful defenders of the Christian faith have pointed out, the truths we speak of as Christians, are claims we assert to be “true truth”. We do not presume to be proffering religious preferences or personal values. We are boldly claiming that our statements regarding God, life, death, heaven, and hell are realities – “real realities”. Of course, that only pertains to those statements that accurately reiterate, reflect or replicate the statements we find in God’s word. “God’s word” – that is a big claim. But it’s one that we Christians allege can be backed up by the evidence we find on the pages of the Bible. It is no ordinary book. Actually, there is not another book like it. It was penned over a 1,500-year span and is generously punctuated by precise depictions of future events given years, decades, and in some cases even millennia before they happened. The Bible bears the marks of being a book that was ultimately “breathed out” by the only one who could have so specially “declared the end from the beginning” (2 Timothy 3:16; Isaiah 46:8-11). So if God himself was the governing force behind the production of this information, then we can and should be much more confident when we present biblical truths to our confused, conflicted and desperately needy society.

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Sharing Meals

God can accomplish a lot of good in the lives of his people when they take their meals together. Think of how often throughout the Bible a feast, a banquet, a breakfast, lunch or dinner serves as the setting for some profound lesson, as an opportunity to give thanks, as a celebration of an important work of God, or simply as the setting for his people to deepen and strengthen their camaraderie as a spiritual family. From the festivals of Israel to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, common meals persistently reappear in the pages of Scripture as God’s means of doing something important and advantageous for his children. Sharing meals was not only a routine part of the church’s formal gatherings in the first-century, but it was also their practice to informally eat together in each other’s homes with glad and generous hearts (Acts 2:46). Often the encouragement, comfort, joy, thanksgiving and mutual support we need as Christians in the twenty-first century is deficient because we neglect this simple yet effective means of connecting and relating. So before you plan your menu for the week, or decide what errands you’ll run on your lunch breaks, make a couple of calls or send a couple of emails to see if you can’t take a few of those meals with some fellow disciples of Christ. It may just be the context God uses to do something good and important in your life.

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Dependence

Comprehending something of our real and absolute dependence on God is foundational to everything in the Christian life. It is where Paul began with the Athenians when, after proclaiming that God was their Creator, he asserted that “he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). That is a kind of moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath involvement of God that seems to be easily forgotten by most Christians these days. And yet, this is certainly not because the Bible doesn’t persistently declare God’s involvement. We see it from the beginning, when it is said that humanity commenced with God’s personal issuance of “the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). It is sung in the Psalter of Israel that God himself “is the fountain of life” (Psalm 36:9). Job said that if God “should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return to the dust” (Job 34:14-15). Paul told the Colossians that it is Christ who “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). So when we are tempted to think that the triune God is distant or disconnected from our lives, we need to remember that nothing could be further from the truth. He not only created us, he actively sustains us. Were he to ignore us, even for a moment, we would cease to exist. So then, especially as Christians, we must live with a perpetual awareness that God “is not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:27-28).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Preparing for God's Word

Responding appropriately to God’s word, whether it is being read or it is being preached, requires an important preparatory step that is often neglected. God’s word is said to be “living and active” and sufficiently able to have a transforming impact on our lives (Hebrews 4:12; Jeremiah 23:29; John 17:17). Often the difference between the times it impacts our lives and the times it doesn’t, Jesus told us, is not a question of the quality of the word, but a problem with the receptivity of the heart (Luke 8:15). Being receptive requires some prep. So before we open the Scriptures in church or at our kitchen tables, we would do well to echo the words of King David who prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). That kind of prayerful prelude to any encounter with God’s word can dissolve our stubbornness, soften our defenses, and eliminate any obstinate resistance we may have to being transformed by his truth. It is a simple yet vulnerable step, which will yield tremendous dividends in our lives. Therefore, let us always be careful to prepare to welcome the Lord’s truth, accepting it “not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work” in us (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

God's Truth

The Bible is full of severe and hard realities. Its propositions aren’t fuzzy or soft; they’re strong, stern and unambiguous. Its heroes aren’t hailed for being sensitive and emotional; they’re lauded for being principled, unyielding, zealous warriors who unapologetically stand up for what is right. Its assessments and judgments do not oscillate based on feelings, sentiments, syndromes or disorders. The strategies of today’s defense attorneys, which sway acquiescent juries would never have worked for Israel’s ruling elders, the New Testament’s apostles, Church history’s councils, and they certainly will not work at the forthcoming Great White Throne Judgment. Like many other things that we’d prefer to be more malleable, but by nature cannot be, the truth is what it is and God’s revealed instructions are not up for negotiation. Yes, there is grace for sinners, but God’s mercy and grace are dispensed according to his clearly prescribed terms. The Bible is replete with warnings about the futility of gambling on the hope that what God has inscribed is transient, provincial, or mere suggestion. So don’t allow our culture’s relativistic droning impair your sobriety or diminish your respect for the absolute truthfulness of God’s truth.

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org

Obedience

At its core, the problem with sin has much less to do with the act itself, and much more to do with the fact that any commission of sin is a rebellion against God’s authority. In our pragmatic world, that is an increasingly rare perspective. Every day we hear Christians attempting to justify, defend or vindicate “biblical commands” because “God’s ways are best for us” or because “doing things God’s way works.” The typical youth sermon, for instance, attempts to curry obedience to God’s command against fornication by extrapolating its advantages for one’s future marriage, or its guarantee against sexually transmitted diseases. Or consider the daily Christian talk shows which attempt to vindicate God’s prohibition regarding homosexuality by trying to articulate this as a safeguard for “traditional family” and society, or by attempting to demonstrate the benefit of two-gender parenting. But think back for a minute to the original sin. If pragmatism is the standard for obeying God’s unambiguous commands, then Satan presented a legitimate argument for disobedience (Genesis 3:2-6). The “forbidden fruit” was sinful, not because it was “bad”, but simply because it was “forbidden”. Sin isn’t wrong because it’s inherently bad for us (though it often is). Sin is bad because it is a direct act of rebellion against the God who has the authority and right to make the rules. So look beyond the pragmatic rationale for upholding God’s express commands. Recognize instead, that no matter what God has commanded, it matters little how advantageous it may or may not be to keep his commands, he is Lord and we are not, and one day we must all give an account for what we have done with his instructions (2 Corinthians 5:10-11).

For more sermons and devotionals on obedience, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org.

Grace and Sanctification

Unfortunately, there are many these days who have come to believe that as it relates to our sanctification, God’s grace and personal effort are mutually exclusive. They unwittingly, and in some cases intentionally, conflate their understanding of justification with their practice in sanctification. In their misapplication of the doctrines of grace they end up replacing spiritual vigilance with apathy, urgency with passivity, contrition over sin with indifference, ambition to store up eternal reward with disinterest, and a determination to pursue holiness with a conspicuous lack of concern. But Paul told Timothy that to “be strengthened by grace” is to be ready and willing to suffer hardship as a solider, to run as a conscientious athlete intent on keeping the rules, and to expectantly anticipate the fruit of diligent labor as the hard-working farmer (2 Timothy 2:1-6). Sadly today’s misguided view of grace is turning Christian soldiers into philosophers, hard-working farmers into mystics, and slaves of righteousness into slaves of their fluctuating feelings and meandering contemplations. Yes, we must never cease to praise God for his unmerited favor, but we must also be careful to allow his grace to instruct us each day to actively “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives” knowing that Christ’s redemption on the cross was not only to secure our place in God’s family, but was also intended to motivate us today to be “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11-14).

For more sermons and devotionals on grace and sanctification, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org. 

Reading for Enjoyment?

I recently read an article based on the stated premise that “the Bible should be read for one’s enjoyment.” With that objective, it was no surprise that the rest of the piece consisted of the author aggressively working to convince his readers to purposefully disregard and ignore any parts of the Bible that would make them feel uncomfortable or might impinge on their modern sensibilities. Of course, the author wanted his readers to affirm his premise and dutifully conform to his directives, regardless of “how difficult it might be to alter their traditional views” of the Bible. This was a classic example of how seriously we expect other people to take our words, even while we sit in judgment of God’s words. Sometimes we have difficulty seeing the irony in how vehemently we seek for our own ideas and thoughts be clearly heard and accurately understood, while seeking to devalue and emasculate God’s thoughts and ideas. No, the Bible was not given for our enjoyment. God has spoken through the apostles and prophets so that we might carefully understand him and dutifully obey his voice. He does not want us to sit in judgment on his inscribed truth, picking and choosing what we prefer. Instead God has promised, “to this one I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

For more sermons and devotionals on the Bible and Bible reading, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org. 

Glorify Christ

It is amazing to me how little effort we Christians commonly put into our work and service for Christ. When the world puts on a dinner for a band of politicians, a red carpet premier for an ensemble of actors, or an awards banquet for a varied group of athletes, the world pulls out all the stops. They give attention to every detail of their programs, they tirelessly rehearse every aspect of their events, and they tenaciously promote and defend the importance of their causes. But in reality their causes mean next to nothing compared to the surpassing greatness of the Person we Christians claim to serve and promote. It is a shame that for much of the church “okay” is good enough. There was a time when Christians were expected to give Christ their best, whether it was their time, their effort, or their sacrifice. And it’s past time to bring that expectation back. So this week, give God your best. Go the extra mile, spend the extra dollar, and stay the extra hour to make your service to Jesus Christ the best it can possibly be.

For more sermons and devotionals on glorifying Christ, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org. 

Live for Christ Today

Peter motivates his readers to pursue godliness and holiness by reminding them that the world’s enticing temptations are a part of a value system that God has promised to destroy. He poignantly describes the complete decimation of the current order of things. “The day of the Lord will come” he writes, “like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved” (2 Peter 3:10). Because the present world is the source of endless distractions and sinful enticements that assault our devotion to Christ, Peter calls us to remember what endures. What we do for God will last. How we invest our hours in Christ’s agenda will have a transcendent worth. “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved,” Peter goes on to ask, “what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?” (2 Peter 3:11). Clearly it makes no sense to dabble in the world’s agenda and imbibe in the passing pleasures of sin. Every sinful impulse that is denied and every idolatrous path that is forsaken will yield eternal dividends and be pondered from the next world as a small sacrifice in such an advantageous investment. You can be sure that one day soon this world will be gone and “the time for rewarding God’s servants will come” (Revelation 11:18). So remember what lasts and live a godly life for Christ today.

For more sermons and devotionals on living for Christ daily, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Unbiblical Thoughts

To grow in our understanding of God and the Christian life requires that we leave behind wrong ideas about God and the Christian life. This may be a self-evident observation, but it’s one we need to think about more often. When we gain a more accurate knowledge of God or his word, we need to purposefully and willingly abandon our previous, inaccurate knowledge. And that is not always as easy as it sounds. We can unconsciously acquire a liking of our aberrant views of God. They can serve us and our sinful tendencies well. Wrong thoughts of God and the Christian life can allow us to cling to comfortable, familiar, yet defective “doctrines” which allow us more latitude in holding onto to the habits and lifestyles we enjoy. Forsaking inadequate or immature views of God’s word can cost us in a variety of practical ways, but as students of God and the Scriptures we must decide ahead of time whether we love the truth or our preferred understanding of the truth. I pray that it is our resolve to willingly suffer the periodic discomfort of exchanging cozy ideas about how we would like things to be, for a more precise understanding of the way things actually are. Decide to let your life “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” as you study God’s word always being ready to renounce every unbiblical thought or inferior idea (Romans12:2).

For more sermons and devotionals on unbiblical thoughts, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Compartmentalization

It is easy to compartmentalize our lives. While sitting in church we can approvingly nod at the biblical lessons that call Christ’s followers to sacrifice, deny themselves, and leave behind earthly pleasures to store up treasure in heaven. But come Monday morning when self-denial has a quantifiable price tag, nods at ancient principles are often replaced with rationalizations regarding the impracticality of letting go of some very concrete and preferred realities. We must be bold to call ourselves out on our own hypocrisy. We dare not applaud the Abrahams, Daniels, and Stephens of the Bible when we won’t willingly risk our own monetary advantage, or sacrifice something of our social status or corporate “success” for Christ’s glory or the advancement of God’s kingdom. Thinking clearly about how each biblical principle might practically be applied in our everyday lives will make Bible study an entirely different experience and will inject a kind of sobriety that is due the eternal and timeless commands of God’s authoritative word. So let’s go ahead and affirm the truth of every biblical sermon, while always being ready to put it all into practice regardless of what it may cost.

For more sermons and devotionals on following Christ no matter the cost, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Real Trust

Trust in God is often expressed by our restraint. We are expected to recognize that God is present, aware and lovingly involved in every difficult situation we face. It is required that Christians curb many of their “natural” responses, and learn to patiently, and often quietly, wait for God’s resolution. Of course there are times he calls us to stand up, speak out or fight, but more times than we’d prefer, God demands that we slow down, keep quiet, and wait for his intervention. We need to remember that in most cases “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). So the more you consider the character of God and his omnipresent concern for his kids, the more you will be able to sincerely say with the psalmist, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord” and you will gladly heed the call to “wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord” (Psalms 27:13-14).

For more sermons and devotionals on trust please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Bible Critics

The Bible has many critics.. Many brash and outspoken people in our society take pleasure in criticizing, maligning and disparaging the Bible – most of them have very little knowledge of what they are attempting to disparage. When I happen to be present to hear such remarks, I am sure to ask some simple questions regarding how much of the Bible these critics have actually read, or if they can tell me why there are two “Testaments,” or any number of orienting questions which are usually quick to reveal how little familiarity these detractors actually have regarding the content of the Scriptures. It’s not that I am asserting some Gnostic ideology that only a few enlightened initiates could possibly understand the Bible, it’s just I find that most hecklers have never fairly considered the book they so vehemently belittle. I can only imagine the outcry were I to take the same approach and scornfully dismiss their favorite novel, movie or sports team with a similar lack of familiarity concerning what I am disdaining. What would they do if I were to definitively criticize their job, industry, or family without any real knowledge of what I was talking about? They certainly wouldn’t take any of it to heart. And neither should we. Occasionally we encounter thoughtful concerns regarding the Bible’s validity which warrant our consideration, but we can be sure that most of the time the critics are clueless.

Communion

Examining yourself before communion...

The Bible tells us that we need to take a good, long look at what is going on in our hearts when we partake in the Lord’s Supper. “Let a person examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup,” Paul told the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11:28). In Corinth this intended act of “communion” with the Lord had become a thoughtless and even selfish church ritual. Their minds had clearly shifted from Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice and had wandered elsewhere. We must not ever let that happen to us. We must stay mentally engaged when we partake of these elements. They have been ordained to soberly remind us of the high cost of God’s forgiveness (1 Peter 1:18-19). Eating and drinking them vividly depicts our union and solidarity with Christ as our Savior, Lord and Source of spiritual life (1 Corinthians 10:16). We should also take the time to examine ourselves to ensure that our relationship with Christ is authentic and genuine. Not only recalling the inauguration of our relationship with Christ, but also seeking to discover if there is any unconfessed sin impeding our current fellowship with God (1 John 1:6-9). Lastly, we would be remiss to ingest these symbols of Christ without a heart that is purposefully thankful. Paradoxically, the Lord’s Supper is not only a reminder of his brutal death, but it is also a celebration of the incredibly generous grace of God and the invaluable privilege of being forgiven. Partake with a grateful heart that can say along with generations of Christians, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

Praying Well

We may imagine it an easy thing to pray a simple prayer. But it turns out to be an incredible challenge to pray often and pray well. Even so, God calls his people to a kind of continual and thoughtful communication that saturates every area of life. We are told to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), which will obviously necessitate an outlook that never forgets that we live each hour in God’s presence. It requires that we consciously affirm his attendance in all the activities of our day. It will take a level of mental and spiritual discipline to turn our thoughts and our words to our ever-present Help in all the tasks we are given to do. Likewise, any success at focused and undistracted prayer will require a kind of spiritual tenacity that is able to say “no” to other people and other things so that we can truly pour out our hearts to God (Matthew 26:36-46). Good and effective praying will also rely on a conscious shift from the trivial to the profound, from temporal things to things that will matter a thousand years from now. So be reminded of the importance of good praying. And don’t be surprised if it doesn’t come easy. Give yourself to prayer and know that these efforts foster a divine intimacy and a connection that far exceeds all the effort and sacrifice that prayer requires.

Selfish Prayers

James 4:3 diagnoses one of the most insidious problems which always undermines, and often devastates our prayer lives. The problem we’re told, is a kind of selfish praying that eventually reshapes our prayer lists, turning our communication with God into little more than a personal “wish list” aimed at a less painful and a more enjoyable existence. As James boldly warns, it is that kind of praying which God will purposefully choose to ignore. Such requests are a reflection of a kind of immature Christianity, which wrongly sees life’s goal as happiness and not holiness, amusement and not ministry. God loves to answer our prayers, but he takes no pleasure in selfishness and greed. That is why God was so complimentary of Solomon, who, when told to ask for whatever he wanted, passed on asking for riches or fame, but instead chose to ask for wisdom so that he might effectively serve God’s people (1 Kings 3:1-15). God quickly responded, giving him not only what he asked for, but pouring out an abundance of blessings that would also bring Solomon happiness and joy. So guard your prayer list from being overrun by selfish desires. Be sure to ask him for those things which will bring God glory and will make your life more useful for his cause.

Opportunities

Followers of Christ always need to be on the look out for opportunities to stand up for Christ and to speak up for his cause. And the more sinful the culture, the more critical it is that God’s people exploit those opportunities. Paul wrote, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17). Any generation could use a reminder to give more careful thought to the occasions in which they could advance the kingdom of God, but in a day like ours, the command couldn’t be any more urgent. Christians need to be strategic, thoughtful, deliberate and shrewd. We need to think through our schedules and our appointments and ask ourselves, “How can I make a difference for Christ and the gospel today?” The Bible warns that because non-Christian culture will go from “bad to worse” it is imperative that Christ’s disciples redouble their premeditated efforts to banner God’s truth, restrain evil and stand up for what is right (2 Timothy 3:13-17). Our efforts won’t be without opposition, but they will certainly have the strong support and enablement of our God (1 Peter 3:13-18). So make plans today to shine brightly in our dark world.

Responding to Trials

Modern Christians tend to misplace a good portion of their compassion. Often when they learn of someone who is struggling or hurting, regardless of the reason, they are quick to offer their blessings, support and encouragement. This kind of indiscriminate sympathy is far from what we see in the pages of the New Testament. The apostles maintained a careful distinction between “suffering for doing good” and “suffering for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:13-17). The former is commended and Christians are called to offer their prayers and their reassuring help (1 Peter 2:19-20). The latter calls for correction and usually prompted a godly rebuke (1 Peter 4:14-17). When we fail to make this distinction we risk being supportive of the unrepentant, thus encouraging insensitive consciences and hardened hearts toward God (Hebrews 12:5-6). Or it could be that our aimless affirmations will unwittingly contribute to “mocking God” by glossing over the important relationship between “sowing and reaping” (Galatians 6:7). So when the connection between suffering and sin is obvious, we should pray and exhort the repentant sufferer to affirm God’s holiness, and with David sing: “I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me” (Psalm 119:75). We all have much to learn from our self-inflicted trials. May we be quick to repent and learn our lessons so that we can make a full recovery and move on to walking even more closely with Christ.

Spiritual Famine

God spoke to a spiritually declining nation through the prophet Amos, predicting a terrible disaster which was fast approaching the borders of Israel. It was not an earthquake, flood or storm, but rather it was the worst kind of calamity that could ever befall a people. His forecast called for a famine. But, God said it was “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11). Amos, the farmer turned prophet, knew how devastating it could be when a nation’s farmlands were deprived their needed rain. So God chose him to prophesy about the even more profound devastation that occurs when God’s people are deprived of God’s word. It was true then, and it is true now – vibrant spiritual lives and biblically generous pulpits go hand-in-hand. But when people harden their hearts to the study and preaching of his word, God brings a famine. Yes, healthy pulpits can produce healthy Christians, but we must realize that negligent and disobedient Christians indirectly cause a scarcity of healthy pulpits. With that concern in mind and to avoid all such famines, may we be sure to maintain an appetite for meaty biblical exposition. And between our gatherings may we often find ourselves voraciously reading, studying and memorizing God’s life-giving words.

Prayer

We live in a “noisy” world. It seems that every waking hour is filled with an onslaught of clamoring sights and sounds that relentlessly bombard our eyes and ears. Around the clock, something is always vying for our attention. New Testament times weren’t as different as you might think, particularly for Jesus. Luke records that he had to “withdraw to desolate places” to engage in undistracted times of prayer (Luke 5:16; Luke 6:12; cf. Mark 1:35). If this was Christ’s necessary practice, we would be foolish to think that we could ever garner the spiritual strength and emboldened faith that we need without fighting for those guarded respites of secluded prayer. We cannot afford not to invest in these times of solitude, pouring out our hearts and petitions to God, especially when the world’s “noise” is often so hostile to our faith (1 John 2:16-17; Psalm 62:8). Prayer is the indispensible means by which we acquire and maintain our strength and spiritual vitality (Hebrews 4:15-16). So find a desolate place and extend your times of prayer this week. Make prayer a priority, knowing that those quiet moments of communion with God will reap the essential resources that you need to live for Christ in the 21st century.

The Correct View

To maintain a proper view of God we have to work to regularly affirm God’s sovereign and authoritative role as the King and Shepherd of our lives. We cannot think accurately of God without consciously adjusting our view of ourselves. If God is the exalted Director and Guide, then we must purpose to see ourselves as his followers and learners. The ancient worshippers of Israel regularly reinforced this essential perspective by singing lyrics like these from their inspired repertoire of worship songs: “Know that Yahweh is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture” (Psalm 100:3). Those may seem like obvious biblical affirmations, but how easily we are enticed to live as though this were not the case. So when you are tempted to see yourself as self-sufficient or self-directed, realize that your theology has instantly become heretical. For God to be God in our lives, we must rightly view ourselves as his obedient and responsive sheep, who are ready and willing to faithfully follow our Great Shepherd.

The Gospel

The Bible tells us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Jesus came to solve both problems – sin and death! Sin was paid for at the cross on that dark Friday afternoon. Death was conquered at the empty tomb early on Sunday morning. The point of the gospel is to have the payment of the cross applied to your sin as you genuinely repent of your sin and wholeheartedly place your trust in Jesus Christ as the complete solution to the debt your sins have racked up against a holy God. Don’t fall to history’s most frequent religious error, thinking that being good, sincere, or better than the next guy will somehow be a sin-cancelling credit. We need to see our lives, including whatever perceived credits we might think we have, exchanged completely for the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Be sure your hope is in him and not yourself. Turn from sin and trust him today.

Christianity Attacked

It seems that almost daily we Christians have to endure a new barrage of attacks against the Christian faith. Tirades on websites, new books pitted against the Bible and angry dissenters continually grabbing microphones and keyboards to unleash their latest arguments against the Christian God. While their presentations are delivered in intellectual terms, it is important to notice how often their diatribes are predated by their own moral departure from the boundaries of Christian ethics. Remember Demas turned on Paul, Christ and Christianity after it was noted that he fell “in love with this present world” (2 Timothy 4:9). The academic attacks upon Peter’s preaching came from those who had already fallen “in love with the gain of wrongdoing” (2 Peter 2:15). The modern critics of Christianity may argue in intellectual terms, but God has often warned that the reasoning of our mind usually follows after the loves of our heart (1 Timothy 6:3-5). It’s not that we shouldn’t respond to their arguments in intellectual terms, it’s just that we must always be aware and at some point address the connection between the “lure and enticement” of unchristian morality and their antichristian arguments (2 Peter 2:1-3; James 1:14-15).

God's Justice

If God is not just, God is not good. If God does not respond justly to the unrighteous decisions of his creatures, then God cannot be holy, good or righteous. In the same way earthly judges cannot be good while perverting justice in their courtrooms, the perfect Judge cannot be perfect if he ignores sin. His perfect love does not negate, invalidate or nullify the perfection of his justice. Without justice there is an eternal imbalance, a nagging discrepancy, and a lack of divine equilibrium in the universe that cannot be disregarded. This reality is our predicament and the quandary of the human race. The gospel of course is the solution. But realize God’s love does not repeal God’s justice. Instead, God’s love provided a judicial solution. The whole point of Christ’s crucifixion was the exacting of rigorous justice motivated by extreme love. If love were enough to solve our problem and maintain divine perfection, there would have been no costly incarnation and no crushing crucifixion. But of course there was. The solution was extravagantly provided because God is love, and it was necessary because God is just.

Bible Reading

Whenever we study the Bible we have to do our best to let the text speak for itself. The goal is to excavate God’s message, ascertain God’s values, and comprehend God’s perspective. We may have many ideas and expectations about what we hope to uncover and what we wish to find, but the Bible has to be approached with an intentional objectivity. Many will tell you that reading the Bible objectively is impossible. That’s a popular refrain from those who want to give themselves license to dismiss what’s really there. But reading the Bible with requisite objectivity is not impossible. It may be unsettling and even scary, but it can and must be done. There are a good many things that I wish the newspaper would report each morning, but every day I have to let the reporters report, adjusting my hopeful expectations as I read. And God is no cub reporter. He knows how to communicate. God has revealed his ascertainable message clearly in the pages of his word. He is not seeking to obscure the truth we need to know. Sure, there is work involved in mining God’s truth, but we must do it, leaving behind our preconceptions and allowing the Bible to speak as we make adjustments.

Defending Truth

1 Peter 3:15 commands all Christians to stand up for the truth and defend the hope of the gospel. It also commands that this be done with “gentleness and respect.” Unfortunately, there is something about defending the truth that can quickly deteriorate into heated arguments, belittling statements, and insulting remarks. It shouldn’t. God expects his ambassadors to stay in control of their emotions and maintain a godly decorum that is worthy of our stately King. Christ’s victory is already settled. His triumphant return is not dependent on our frenzied quarrels. The truth is settled. Christ has already won. Our objective is to provide dignified and respectful corrections to those who call his truth into question. While our emotional disturbance is understandable when people malign our God, the Spirit’s goal in our speech is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). It may seem paradoxical, but we are called to fight for the truth gently and respectfully. So don’t get out there and attempt to defend Christ’s honor in a dishonorable way. Keep your cool, and let your defense be seasoned with the courtesy and dignity that befits God’s royal family.

Fickle Feelings

Our feelings are fickle but God’s word is unchanging. There may be several factors, righteous and otherwise, which will influence our emotions, yet the Bible stands as our unalterable source of divine information providing eternal clarity regarding God’s values and priorities. This is why the Bible must serve as our perpetual guide for decision-making. God repeatedly warns us to “not lean on our own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5) but instead to affirm with David that God’s word is “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). It is tragic that much of modern Christianity has advocated a shift from objectively thinking our way through the Christian life in the light of God’s written word, to subjectively feeling our way through the Christian life being pushed and prodded by our fluctuating emotional impulses. How many clear passages of Scripture are ignored because Christians don’t “feel it”? How many express commands in the Bible are disobeyed because God’s people don’t “feel led”? This should never be. We must act on God’s inscribed directives, not our shifting sentiments. So may we all reaffirm the historic Christian resolve to subject the entirety of our lives to the authority of God’s word, even when our feelings are left to catch up.

Making A Difference

We cannot afford, nor should we ever be content to live unmotivated and unproductive Christian lives. God has endowed every one of his children with gifts, opportunities and resources to make a difference each day for the advancement of his kingdom and the good of his people. Many of our fruitless days have to do with a deficiency in our attitude, not a lack of opportunities. This is why the Bible has so much to say about our perspective and our mindset. Jesus certainly encouraged us to have an optimistic outlook for our daily productivity when he said that through the means of his people “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Paul sets the pace in not getting bogged down in yesterday’s failures or accomplishments when he wrote, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal” (Philippians 3:12-14). We, along with the Colossians are exhorted to “work heartily” at the Monday-through-Friday tasks to which we are called, always keeping God, his transcendent agenda and his eternal rewards in view (Colossians 3:22-24). So then, let’s approach each day with an energetic passion to make a difference for Christ, tirelessly “abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord our labor is not in vain” (1Corinthians 15:58).

The Sting of God's Word

Some naively presume that good preaching should leave the congregation feeling good. But most seasoned Christians have come to realize that the best, most meaningful and effectual sermons usually sting, if not wound. God warned that the Scriptures are “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and of spirit… discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Because good preaching accurately and skillfully relays the meaning, purpose and implications of a given text, it is bound to “pierce” parts of our lives that have previously laid comfortably untouched by the conviction of God’s word. During a good sermon a biblical text will utilize the preacher to unapologetically call God’s people to “break up their fallow ground, because it is the time to seek the Lord” (Hosea 10:12). Such disruption rarely comes without a certain degree of pain. Nevertheless, a good preacher knows he is commanded to hold up the mirror of God’s word and facilitate those poignant moments of honest introspection and self-assessment (James 1:23-25). While some prefer their naivety and will continue to seek out preachers and sermons that always aim at good feelings, they will do so at their own peril. A regular diet of feel-good sermons will swindle their hearers from the blessings and benefits of obedience. God laments the bad preaching which fails “to expose your iniquity” and thus is powerless to “restore the fortunes” of righteousness (Lamentations 2:14). So the next time the discomfort of a good, biblical sermon makes you squirm, remember that God is involved and is doing the necessary work of discerning and transforming the thoughts and intentions of your heart.

What Is Required?

Many have sought to discover the minimal Christianity required of them to “still be Christian”. “How much of the world can I love, or how much of my agenda can I pursue and still be okay with God?” they ask. Or, “Just how sinful, casual, or lukewarm are we allowed to be and still be saved?” Of course the Bible isn’t much help in answering these questions. The whole tenor of Scripture disallows such thinking. On the contrary, Christ assertively commands his people to love the Triune God “with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your strength, and all of your mind” (Luke 10:27). The Apostles plead with the people of God to “abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22) and to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding the work of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). There is no assistance in describing minimalism because Christianity is all about maximal, whole-life, wholehearted devotion and commitment to Christ. We must come to realize that radical Christianity is normative Christianity. Sure, we are still subject to and plagued with periodic bouts of sin and failure, but the new life Christ gives sets in every regenerate heart a passion to live fully for our Creator and King. The Holy Spirit doesn’t add to sinners a new set of ancillary interests; he radically transforms hearts to voraciously and eternally seek the glory of their Maker. So may we never be heard asking, “What can I get away with?” but instead may we perpetually ask, “How might I love God and more perfectly serve him today?”

Worship

A.W. Tozer was right when he observed that “a low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.” It makes sense that our specific view of God will determine the quality of our Christian life. If we view him as casual about sin, then we probably won’t care much about it either. If we perceive him to be inexact about truth, then we’ll probably be indifferent about the whole topic as well. If, on the other hand, we are working to think of God in the terms and ways he has chosen to reveal himself in Scripture, then our lives will likely begin to correspond. It is hard to regularly ponder God as transcendently glorious, perfectly holy, absolute in power, and impeccably wise without our daily attitudes and actions being shaped and molded by those truths. This is one reason personal worship is so important. When we worship our exalted God, wholeheartedly expressing and ascribing to God all the perfection that he is, our minds are shaped and our tendency to lazily think of God is countered. Of course, this should be our concern in corporate worship as well. We dare not simply mouth the words of our worship songs and hymns; our minds must be focused and engaged so that our lives will follow.

Who Is Responsible?

Ask any police officer (or watch any reality Cops show) and you’ll see just how creatively we humans can string together a list of excuses for any and every deviant behavior. From the inner-city streets to the therapist’s couch we have become experts in rationalizing why we do what we do, and why what we do really isn’t “blame-worthy” because it really isn’t our fault. Open the Bible and you’ll find no sympathy for that kind of thinking. Excuses are never received kindly in the pages of Scripture. What God is looking for are people who will admit their transgressions and accept full responsibility for their sins. Biblical wisdom instructs: “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). God is a merciful God, but his mercy and grace are not granted to those who do not accept ownership for their behavior. There may be many reasons for our sins, but there are ultimately no excuses. May we all experience the extravagant grace of God as we consistently practice brutal honesty concerning ourselves, our words and our actions.